January 11, 2007

Notes on the Current Currin Pornocopia

I recently read the Jerry Saltz review
of the latest of John Currin's latest exhibition at Gagosian. I'd like
to say that I never really pay attention to reviews or to what the big
boys are doing in their studios. I do what you probably do -- read a
lot, ignore most of it, and pay attention to what drives a stake
through my heart. I have a kind of like hate relationship with John
Currin. At his Whitney retrospective, I was not happy. Even the tour
guide (woman) wanted to cut his dick off. But I didn't really want to
be angry, because that would make me react in a way that Currin had
clearly staged. It was a most peculiar experience, I felt manipulated.
This is indeed a very accomplished painter and a clever man who has
mastered the art of agit prop.

I haven't seen the new show at
Gagosian, but I'm sure you know all about it. It's beautiful
pornography, which makes perfect sense in Currin's evolution. But I
what I was really struck by was the similar predicament in which I am
struggling, and Saltz' uncanny words that really nailed the problem.

"Around
1998, John Currin began his rise to the top of every collector’s wish
list and commenced his descent into slick, fussy, quasi–Northern
Renaissance academicism. "

Yikes. Mea Culpa.

"By the late '90s, aware perhaps that he was in danger of becoming a "period
artist," Currin used traditional ideas about painterly skill to get
beyond shtick. This opened his work up to wide audiences and helped
establish him as perhaps the signature American realist of today. But
this skill soon devolved into shtick. Currin's surfaces died, as did
the conversation around his work, which came to revolve almost entirely
around technical issues. Even he admitted, "I'm conservative," and
fretted, "Maybe I'm just an academic realist." Currin's work was too
specific, perverse, mannered and complex to be dismissed as only these
things. But it seemed that after 1998, Currin’s inner contrarian had
turned compliant.

Okay, so he salvaged himself by painting porn.
Good move. I'm not pissed off anymore, it's just images of women being
exquisitely rendered as sexual objects. What a relief. Same agit prop,
different costume. [...]

Comments

I recently read the Jerry Saltz review
of the latest of John Currin's latest exhibition at Gagosian. I'd like
to say that I never really pay attention to reviews or to what the big
boys are doing in their studios. I do what you probably do -- read a
lot, ignore most of it, and pay attention to what drives a stake
through my heart. I have a kind of like hate relationship with John
Currin. At his Whitney retrospective, I was not happy. Even the tour
guide (woman) wanted to cut his dick off. But I didn't really want to
be angry, because that would make me react in a way that Currin had
clearly staged. It was a most peculiar experience, I felt manipulated.
This is indeed a very accomplished painter and a clever man who has
mastered the art of agit prop.

I haven't seen the new show at
Gagosian, but I'm sure you know all about it. It's beautiful
pornography, which makes perfect sense in Currin's evolution. But I
what I was really struck by was the similar predicament in which I am
struggling, and Saltz' uncanny words that really nailed the problem.

"Around
1998, John Currin began his rise to the top of every collector’s wish
list and commenced his descent into slick, fussy, quasi–Northern
Renaissance academicism. "

Yikes. Mea Culpa.

"By the late '90s, aware perhaps that he was in danger of becoming a "period
artist," Currin used traditional ideas about painterly skill to get
beyond shtick. This opened his work up to wide audiences and helped
establish him as perhaps the signature American realist of today. But
this skill soon devolved into shtick. Currin's surfaces died, as did
the conversation around his work, which came to revolve almost entirely
around technical issues. Even he admitted, "I'm conservative," and
fretted, "Maybe I'm just an academic realist." Currin's work was too
specific, perverse, mannered and complex to be dismissed as only these
things. But it seemed that after 1998, Currin’s inner contrarian had
turned compliant.

Okay, so he salvaged himself by painting porn.
Good move. I'm not pissed off anymore, it's just images of women being
exquisitely rendered as sexual objects. What a relief. Same agit prop,
different costume. [...]